my own wallet seed

[Samings]

Is there any wallet or way to adjust wallet options to generate my wallet seed? Whether it is my own words or a choice of existing words?
I know that this will make it more vulnerable to hack, but I do not want to store many currencies in such wallets.

[bob123]

You can use your own wordlist with electrum.
This will generate you a mnemonic code with 12 words from your own wordlist.

The security itself isn't worse than the standard wordlist. You just have to make sure to have the wordlist in the correct order, or otherwise you will lose access to your coins.


Is there a specific reason you want to use your own wordlist?

[o_e_l_e_o]

The security itself isn't worse than the standard wordlist. You just have to make sure to have the wordlist in the correct order, or otherwise you will lose access to your coins.

The order of the wordlist for Electrum doesn't actually matter. In fact, you don't need to have the word list at all. If I use a custom wordlist to generate a seed on Electrum, I can restore that wallet from the same seed phrase on any copy of Electrum, with or without the custom worsdlist. The security could also very well be worse than the standard wordlist depending on how I pick my wordlist. If my wordlist is made up of 10 names of my immediate family members, then it will be very insecure.

You can also pick your own words from the BIP39 word list using a tool such as https://iancoleman.io/bip39/, which will calculate out the correct checksum and final word for you.

Picking your own words is a terrible idea though. I echo bob123's question - why do you want to use custom words?

[bob123]

The order of the wordlist for Electrum doesn't actually matter.

Why doesn't it matter ?
The secret information (11 bit number; decimal: 0-2047) is used as an index to pick the correct word.

While the standard wordlist is sorted alphabetically, this doesn't have to be the case with your own wordlist. And in this case the order does indeed matter.

In fact, you don't need to have the word list at all. If I use a custom wordlist to generate a seed on Electrum, I can restore that wallet from the same seed phrase on any copy of Electrum, with or without the custom worsdlist.

How would electrum be able to derive the 11 bit number from a random word without having its position in a given list ?

The security could also very well be worse than the standard wordlist depending on how I pick my wordlist. If my wordlist is made up of 10 names of my immediate family members, then it will be very insecure.

I was assuming that OP is talking about a custom wordlist with 2048 entries.
Anything else (e.g. using only 2 words alternating for the whole wordlist) obviously is absolutely dumb (and wouldn't work).

If you pick 2048 names of your friends, familiy, pets, etc.. the security isn't affected.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Why doesn't it matter ?
The secret information (11 bit number; decimal: 0-2047) is used as an index to pick the correct word.

That's how BIP39 seeds work. It is not how Electrum seed works.

Electrum 2.0 derives keys and addresses from a hash of the UTF8 normalized seed phrase with no dependency on a fixed wordlist. This means that the wordlist can differ between wallets while the seed remains portable, and that future wallet implementations will not need today’s wordlists in order to be able to decode the seeds created today.

You can try this out for yourself. Find the "english.txt" wordlist within your Electrum directory, back it up, and then edit it to contain any words you want. Create a new wallet, and it will give you a seed phrase using only your custom word list. Close Electrum, restore "english.txt" to the original, reopen Electrum, and create a new wallet, this time restoring from the seed you generated with your custom wordlist. The addresses will match.

Anything else (e.g. using only 2 words alternating for the whole wordlist) obviously is absolutely dumb (and wouldn't work).

Actually, it will work. Electrum only needs 2 words to create a seed. The seed it generates will be 132 "words" long (i.e. 132 bits), but it will still generate one for you.

[bob123]

That's how BIP39 seeds work. It is not how Electrum seed works.

Electrum 2.0 derives keys and addresses from a hash of the UTF8 normalized seed phrase with no dependency on a fixed wordlist. This means that the wordlist can differ between wallets while the seed remains portable, and that future wallet implementations will not need today’s wordlists in order to be able to decode the seeds created today.

This makes sense.
Whether this is a better or worse approach than BIP39 is questionable. But that's definitely a reasonable one.

Electrum only needs 2 words to create a seed. The seed it generates will be 132 "words" long (i.e. 132 bits), but it will still generate one for you.

Wow.. that's horrible.
Electrum really is doing everything which theoretically is possible..

[pooya87]

~
Wow.. that's horrible.
Electrum really is doing everything which theoretically is possible..

i wouldn't say horrible. it is an option that is there, and it is best to have these things than not to. when the option is not known to beginners, they still remain safe and advanced users who would use such things are aware of the risks and would use it correctly (eg. with the right long wordlist, good entropy,...).

[nc50lc]

Is there any wallet or way to adjust wallet options to generate my wallet seed? Whether it is my own words or a choice of existing words?

Since everyone is recommending Electrum, you can follow this:

• Create a wallet using "Standard wallet->I already have a seed",
• Write your "own wallet seed", Click "option" and check "BIP39", it will display as "BIP39 Checksum: Failed"
• Hit next, select the address type and finish creating the wallet.

I won't warn you about the security risk because of this:

I know that this will make it more vulnerable to hack, but I do not want to store many currencies in such wallets.

Electrum can only store Bitcoin by the way.

[o_e_l_e_o]

• Create a wallet using "Standard wallet->I already have a seed",
• Write your "own wallet seed", Click "option" and check "BIP39", it will display as "BIP39 Checksum: Failed"
• Hit next, select the address type and finish creating the wallet.

That's not really a good way to create a wallet for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the obvious reason. No one should just be making up their own seed phrase. Humans are bad at being random and bad at generating entropy. Any phrase you come up with yourself will be significantly less secure than one generated for you, even one generated for you from a word list you supply.

Secondly, you could easily run in to problems down the line trying to restore this wallet from your seed. You are forcing Electrum to accept a seed phrase which is not a valid BIP39 phrase, and may even contain words which are not on the BIP39 wordlist. You will be unable to restore this seed phrase to anywhere other than Electrum, and as Electrum states they do not guarantee to continue supporting BIP39 phrases, you may end up unable to restore the seed phrase in to any current wallet. Will OP remember in 2, 5, 10 years that he has to download a long outdated version of Electrum (which may well refuse to connect to any servers), and he has to enter his non-BIP39 phrase as a BIP39 phrase?

If OP really wants to go against all advice and pick his own phrase, then he should at least make make it properly BIP39 or Electrum compatible.

[hosseinimr93]

You can try this out for yourself. Find the "english.txt" wordlist within your Electrum directory, back it up, and then edit it to contain any words you want. Create a new wallet, and it will give you a seed phrase using only your custom word list. Close Electrum, restore "english.txt" to the original, reopen Electrum, and create a new wallet, this time restoring from the seed you generated with your custom wordlist. The addresses will match.

I tried to check this. But I cannot edit the "english.txt" file.
The first word in the list is "abandon". I changed it to "abide". When I hold CTRL+S or I click on "file" and select "save", a new window opens and it asks me to select a location for saving the new file.
It's like that I am clicking on "save as" button.



I tried to save the new file with a same name and in a same location so it replaces the old file. But I got "Access is denied" error.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Open it as an administrator.

[Csmiami]

---

Just a tip: if you open the file with notepad++ instead of default windows notepad; you'll see 1 word per line.

It's kinda easier to read and edit that way

[nc50lc]

That's not really a good way to create a wallet for a couple of reasons.

Thanks, but there's no need to correct me about those points.
For the first one: That's why I have added a second paragraph quoting OP's own awareness of the possible risks.
I didn't added a warning since he said so himself that he's aware of the risks and want to live dangerously.

Perhaps you should quote it together with the snipped quote so OP will be informed of the other risks aside from "hacks".